One argument in favor of legalizing marijuana in California centers on the massive funds that can be generated for the Not-So-Golden State through taxing and regulating weed.
Some go so far as to hail cannabis as the solution to the state budget crisis, which has now been here so long it has its own ZIP code.
Naturally, with polls showing legalization in the lead among state voters, Buzz-Kill, Inc. has taken aim at the cash-for-crops contention.
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For tax and state election law purposes, Buzz-Kill, Inc.–the consortium of cops, growers, gangsters, busy bodies and the prison-industrial complex that will take a huge financial hit if legalization passes–flies under the handle Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana, or NAMBLA (hat tip to Jon Stewart).
“This is a blatant lie!” screeches Carla Lowe, founder of CALM, not over my linking her group to man-boy love but about taxing pot filling state budget gaps.
“Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, might better be called 'the Now Everyone Can Get Stoned Act,' and taxpayers will pick up the costs,” claims Darla Douche, or whatever she's calling herself these days.
Damn, if only cannabis initiative backers had called it the “Now Everyone Can Get Stoned Act,” support would be even greater than it is now.
But, back to Eva Braun's reasoning, which goes like so: it will not be up to the state to tax and regulate the devil's weed, but local and county governments. Each will have to establish new laws to allow the individual taxation of Mary Jane, followed by creating new layers of bureaucracy to control grassy revenues.
She bases this on the legal opinion of Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney who is not just the GOP nominee for state attorney general but a CALM member.
Meanwhile, Ms. How-Lowe-Can-You-Go turns to Dr. Forest Tennant, the former mayor of West Covina and comrade in CALM, for this added spin: each municipality will have to create drug labs to test the levels of THC in the marijuana each jurisdiction regulates.
Why? Well . . . because . . . uh . . . it sounds science-y.
The upshot of all this, you teabaggers sitting on the sidelines, is that just like Obamacare, the bank bailouts and the final Lost episode, legalization will usher in mo' gubment, mo' gubment, mo' gubment.
Now, before you say, “Eureka, with all those new government jobs, marijuana legalization will also solve our unemployment problem!” you must consider this: cross-checking all those new satanic government agencies will fall on our already over-burdened law enforcement community.
And, if you think that'll let the state off the hook like a Delta smelt, CALM is here to inform that California taxpayers will be on the line for all of the above plus increased costs from auto accidents, drug rehabilitation, increased crime, broken families, mental health treatment and emergency room care.
Jeez, Louise, they make marijuana legalization sound as evil as impoverished Mexican immigrants!
Take it away, CALM Southern California chairman Scott Chipman:
“We're being asked to subject ourselves to more government regulation, more crime and higher taxes so that a few people can smoke recreationally,” barfs Chippy. “I SAY NO TO THAT!”
Dude, you don't have to shout. If only there was some wonder substance that could help these cretins mellow out.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.